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Student Loans

Mr. Edwards: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what facility exists to pay off the outstanding balance on a student loan. [19811]

Margaret Hodge: Borrowers can pay off the outstanding balance on their student loans direct to the Student Loans Company at any time. Borrowers who wish to do so are advised to contact the SLC to arrange the most appropriate way to make the payments.

Mr. Edwards: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans she has to require the Student Loans Company to issue regular statements to individuals about the outstanding balance, repayments made and the projected term of the loan. [19813]

Margaret Hodge: Borrowers under the pre-1998 scheme (mortgage style loans) receive annual statements from the Student Loans Company. They sign a loan agreement which sets out the repayment terms—five years for less than five loans and seven years for five or more loans.

For borrowers under the new income-contingent loans scheme, repayment is collected by their employers through deductions from their earnings, in line with tax and national insurance contributions. These borrowers will get a statement from the SLC after the end of the tax year, once the SLC has received details of their repayments from the Inland Revenue.

Self-employed borrowers would receive their statements after the end of the tax year as long as they made their self-assessment returns to the Inland Revenue on time.

Loan repayments under the income contingent scheme rise or fall with earnings. They do not, therefore, have a projected repayment term.

3 Dec 2001 : Column: 81W

Mr. Edwards: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans she has to improve the information available by the Student Loans Company about the balance on an individual's outstanding loan. [19814]

Margaret Hodge: Borrowers under the pre-1998 scheme (mortgage style loans) can contact the Student Loans Company at any time to obtain information on their outstanding loan.

For borrowers under the new income-contingent loan scheme, repayments are collected by their employers, through deductions from their earnings, in line with tax and national insurance contributions.

These borrowers will get a statement from the SLC after the end of the tax year. This will happen after the SLC has received details of their repayments from the Inland Revenue.

Self-employed borrowers would receive their statements after the end of the tax year as long as they make their self-assessment returns to the Inland Revenue on time.

My officials are currently working with the SLC to find better ways of providing account updates for income contingent loan borrowers, in particular to ensure that repayments are stopped as soon as the loan is repaid.

Mr. Hendry: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many student loans have been issued; and what is the total value of student loans issued, broken down by each LEA area. [20193]

Margaret Hodge: In academic year 2000–01, there were 648,500 loans to the value of £1,920.8 million issued to students normally domiciled in England and Wales. Information broken down by LEA area is not held centrally, but we are asking the Student Loans Company to write to the hon. Gentleman further on this.

Education Initiatives

Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how many statutory (a) plans and (b) reports (i) primary and (ii) secondary schools complete annually; [19403]

(2) how many new education initiatives that require action by head teachers have been launched by her Department in the current financial year. [19708]

Mr. Timms: Primary and secondary schools are statutorily required to produce each year a report from the governing body for parents, a report for parents on their children's achievements, and an annual budget plan. Since the start of April 2001, the Department for Education and Skills has sent primary schools 20 documents for action of which nine were new, and secondary schools 22 documents for action of which nine were new.

Sex Discrimination (Single-faith Schools)

Mrs. Dunwoody: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will ensure that existing sex discrimination legislation is enforced in respect of single-faith schools. [19630]

Mr. Timms: All schools in the maintained sector are already required to comply with existing sex discrimination legislation.

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Departmental Underspend

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when she expects to spend the £1.44 billion that was allocated to her Department for 2000–01 but not spent. [19528]

Estelle Morris: Of the £1.44 billion available in end-year flexibility from the former Department for Education and Employment, my Department has so far drawn down £584 million to spend this year and transferred £326 million to the Department for Work and Pensions. The remaining funds have been allocated and will be drawn down when needed.

"Curriculum Online"

Mr. Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when she will publish the Government's conclusions following the consultation paper, "Curriculum Online"; and if she will make a statement. [19609]

Mr. Ivan Lewis: The consultation paper "Curriculum Online" closed on 1 July; we received 159 responses, which have now been analysed. We are considering the responses and are currently making arrangements for publication shortly.

In summary, the responses demonstrated widespread support for the Government's vision of a service to provide teachers with easy online access to a consistent, coherent and comprehensive set of digital learning materials to support teaching across the curriculum.

Departmental Expenditure Limit

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will estimate the total unallocated funds within her departmental expenditure limit (a) at the start of the financial year and (b) to date; and what was the month seven forecast on outturn underspend against her departmental expenditure limit in (i) real and (ii) percentage terms. [19436]

Estelle Morris: The Department for Education and Employment annual report for 2000–01 (Cm 5102) contains the departmental unallocated provision (DUP) set for the present financial year in table 4.2, under the line entitled "Emergency Reserve".

There has been no draw down of the Department's DUP to date. Outturn against six-month forecast for each request for resources will be published in the winter supplementary estimates summary request for supply as usual.

University Resources

Dr. Gibson: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans she has to include university interaction with the community when assessing the allocation of resources to universities. [19459]

Margaret Hodge: The higher education reach-out to business and the community fund and its successor, the higher education innovation fund, have given higher education institutions (HEIs) the opportunity to apply for funding for interaction with the community.

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Furthermore, the higher education active community fund of £27 million will be distributed over three years to HEIs to support volunteering among students and staff. Volunteering helps HEIs to build bridges with their communities; it helps students to gain workplace experience and staff to develop their careers; and it helps voluntary sector organisations gain access to higher level skills and knowledge. The HE active community fund will assist in the creation of 14,000 new volunteering opportunities for HE students and staff.

Additionally, higher education institutions are receiving £57 million of widening participation funding over three years from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) as part of the Government's excellence challenge policy. This money helps institutions to reach out to more young people from communities who do not have a tradition of entering higher education.

Student Drop-outs

Mr. Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the first year student drop-out rate was in new universities in (a) 1997, (b) 1998, (c) 1999 and (d) 2000. [19615]

Margaret Hodge [holding answer 30 November 2001]: The available information on non-continuation rates is contained in "Performance Indicators in Higher Education", published by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). The figures show, for each individual HE institution in the UK, the proportion of entrants to full-time first degree courses who do not continue in higher education beyond the first year. HEFCE also calculates a sector-wide non-continuation rate, but nothing is published for all new universities in aggregate. Copies of the HEFCE publications covering students starting courses in 1996–97 and 1997–98 are available in the House Library; prior to 1996–97, non-continuation rates were not published for individual HEIs.

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